Virgin Galactic will launch its 5th space flight this Thursday (25)

Space flight company Virgin Galactic has announced. The company’s next manned flight will take place next Thursday (25). Richard Branson’s spaceflight company has confirmed that this will be the final test before launching commercial flights for customers around the world.

According to the company’s forecast, the flight of the VSS Unity spacecraft is scheduled for 11 a.m. (Brazil time). The flight will take place nearly a year after the last manned test launched in July 2021, attended by CEO Sir Richard Branson and three other Virgin Galactic employees.

The new mission will send two pilots and four mission specialists from Virgin Galactic. The purpose of the crew is to final spaceflight assessment to understand the entire experience of the trip, before making a commercial service available. The airline plans to start offering commercial flights by the end of June.

“As we do with every test flight, we are evaluating all data, including assessing the root cause of the loss of computer communication. Starting with the iteration of this test flight involving two NASA pilots and the payload, we continue to focus on the test flight program we announced earlier. Another test flight will follow. And after that flight, we will do another test flight with our founder Sir Richard Branson.”

Virgin Galactic commercial flights

As with other launches, the VSS Unity spacecraft will be sent to a height of 15 kilometers from the Earth’s surface. So the module VMS Eve will detach from the aircraft and launch to an altitude of 85 kilometers. That way, space tourists can enjoy zero gravity and incredible views of Earth for just a few minutes. After a short time, the vehicle will begin to descend back to base.

Virgin Galactic has been working on the project for many years, although the company lags behind competitors such as Blue Origin and SpaceX. However, in addition to a few technical problems, an accident in 2014 resulted in the death of pilot Michael Alsbury, so the project was delayed for several years.